OF EXTRA-EUllOPEAN TRTC1IOPTERA.. 



101 



strongest mark of demarcation is the presence, in most Lepi- 

 dopterous imagos, of a spine-like process near the base of the 

 costa of the hind wings, wanting in all Triclioptera. That this 

 process is a modification of a vein is almost certain ; and I ap- 

 prehend that, when the homologies of neuration are better under- 

 stood, this negative character in Triclioptera will not be found 

 of much importance. My own inclination tends strongly towards 

 maintaining Triclioptera as a separate order in juxtaposition with 

 Lepidoptera ; and I am thus content to share the pity bestowed 

 by the reviewer of Huxley's ' Introduction to the Classification 

 of Animals,' in the ' American Naturalist ' (a journal receiving 

 Dr. Packard's inspiration) for November 1869, by whom we are 

 told that (p. 5-15), " the strangest, and, humanely speaking, sad- 

 dest feature of this classification, is recognizing the Neuropterous 

 family Phryganeidae as a distinct order {Trichoptera) ." In a divi- 

 sion of insects such as the Linnean Neuroptera, which is so tho- 

 roughly heterogeneous, much allowance should be made for dif- 

 ferences of opinion, and it is scarcely fair to bestow such dog- 

 matic censure upon any system, however opposed it may be to 

 individual convictions. 



Family PHKYGrANEIDiE. 



The following is an attempt at a systematic and synonymic 

 catalogue of all the described species of this family, taken in its 

 limited sense. The genera are not well-defined, notwithstanding 

 the size of the insects, the neural characters not being suffi- 

 ciently stable, or rather, perhaps, the materials at present in 

 hand being too meagre, to enable me to draw lines of demarca- 

 cation absolutely satisfactory. A few notes on the general 

 characters are here given. 



Colpomera, M'Lachlan, which I was inclined to place as a sec- 

 tion of Phryganea in its limited sense, on account of the strong 

 facial resemblance of the type to P. japonica ; is evidently a good 

 genus. The general characters are as in Phryganea ; but the 

 anterior wings are narrower, the apex being falcate, the apical 

 margin strongly excised. The apex of the abdomen of the 

 female (which sex I have only recently seen) is produced into a 

 telescopic tube, indicating some peculiar mode of life, and quite 

 different from the blunt apex of Phryganea. The neuration 

 differs in the sexes, as in P. grandis and allies. 



